Gender activist launches campaign in K’dua to educate women on relevant laws

The Law and Women Field Advocacy Programme has been relaunched with a special focus on a campaign to educate and inform women and other vulnerable groups on the relevant laws that relate to their day-to-day lives.

The  campaign, which will take the form of field advocacy, seeks to engage the public directly on the major situational issues affecting women and children and how the relevant laws sought to protect such vulnerable persons.

Speaking at the relaunch of the programme at the Koforidua Lorry Station in the Eastern Region recently, a human rights lawyer and gender activist, Ms Mary Ohenewaa Afful, said the new programme was designed to engage both females and males to know the law regarding the negative practices meted out to women and children.

The advocacy, she said, would also educate both males and females on the need to desist from such acts in order not to be caught by the law.

Ms Afful, who is also the founder of the programme, said the relaunch of the programme was also meant to create awareness and educate the public on the current legal position of issues confronting women and children.

Getting the public informed

“It is also geared towards educating the entire public on their legal rights and responsibilities, as well as how and where  affected people will benefit from the programme,” she said.

Ms Afful said the main aim of the programme was to essentially bring the laws of Ghana to the doorsteps of the ordinary Ghanaian.

Speaking on the main areas of focus in the field of advocacy, she said it had been realised that many women had been left abandoned by their husbands who had gone into other marriages without dissolving the earlier marriage.

“And the women who do not know their legal rights and the applicable laws on marriage and divorce have been abandoned and only wishing that either their husbands come back to continue with the marriage or divorce them and give them the appropriate compensation,” she said.

She added that such women do not know that they could apply to the courts to seek divorce even on their own and claim reliefs provided for by the laws of Ghana.

Disobeying the Intestate Succession Law

Ms Afful also observed that many family members of deceased spouses had decided not to obey the laws on intestate succession as provided for in  PNDC Law 111.

“So the purpose of the field advocacy is to advise all and sundry to save their families by preparing a valid will for the distribution of their self-acquired, gifted or inherited properties. The focus is to stop these family members of deceased spouses from ejecting the wife and children from their properties upon their demise,” she said.

She explained that once there was a will in place, the intentions of the deceased spouse would be clearly stated in the will and no one would disobey the contents of the will in respect of the estate of the deceased spouse.

Ms Afful expressed the optimism that on the whole, it was expected that the field advocacy would go a long way to educate the public and create the needed awareness so that affected persons could seek redress in the law courts or seek legal remedies in specific governmental institutions such as the police and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) when their legal, constitutional and fundamental rights were or had been abused.

Some of the participants in the programme, especially women, decried the maltreatment meted out to them by their husbands and families.

They contended that even if they knew of remedies, the cost of legal processes were so expensive that majority of women were left at the mercy of some ‘wicked’ heads of their husbands, families.

According to the women, the government would assist them if legal aid was extended to all parts of the country instead of the present practice where the offices were located in the urban areas.